Beersmith mash question

[awarner322]

Hey guys....I recently updated to beersmith after using brewpal on my ipod for quite a while. I entered in some of my recipes using beersmith and noticed quite a bit of difference in the amounts and temps of my strike and sparge water for mashing. For example using the same exact recipe, batch size, efficency (70%) these two programs came up with this:

Brew pal:

Mash
60 minutes, 9.0 gallons

Strike
Target 152°F 5.2 gallons
163°F
60 minutes (+0)

Sparge
Target 170°F 3.8 gallons
182°F


Beersmith:
Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 5.49 gal of water at 163.5 F 150.0 F 75 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 5.00 gal water at 168.0 F


basically the difference...strike 5.2 gal @ 152 target v 5.49 gal @ 150 target
sparge 3.8 gal @ 170 target v 5 gal @ 168 target


I have had good success with this recipe using brewpal numbers...just curious if anyone knows about this difference...I would tend to trust beersmith more...just curious

thanks

 

[SouthBay]

it looks like a profile issue in Beersmith. You can modify the profile to customize it for your setup. Try playing around with that area, and that will likely bring it in line. FWIW, after customizing my profile, my temps and volumes are accurate to less than a degree. thats AFTER customizing the profile, though.

 

[awarner322]

I'm sorry but can you explain what exactly you mean by that?

 

[FifteenTen]

Beersmith adjusts for tun temp and tun deadspace and intital grain temp etc. all of these things can be adjusted for your personal set up. I had to just get in there and click this and that until I felt like I was where I need to be. I'm still no beersmith expert, but I'm learning. Good luck.

 

[ktblunden]

Here's the page from Beersmith's site on setting up your profile. It's something that I really need to adjust on mine, but haven't gotten around to.
http://beersmith.com/equipment-setup/

 

[awarner322]

I have Beersmith 2.0 which has settings for a 10 gallon igloo mash tun (which is what I have). Just wondered if the volumes and temps I am now getting with beersmith are more 'normal' and the brewpal was more 'abnormal'?

 

[Gameface]

I almost always adjust my strike water volume to 6gal (10g recipe, w/about 20lbs of grain) for every recipe. I'm just silly like that, makes the early part of my brew day go exactly like every other early part of the brew day, which is nice when I start before I've had any coffee.

You could adjust your strike water volume in BS to 5.2 and see what temp it asks for. I'm guessing it'll change the temp to match what you were using

 

[strambo]

I just do PM, but I haven't really paid attention to the temps Beersmith gives me. I just decide what temp I want to mash at and do that.